by
Nalin de SilvaThe Buddhists and Hindus are reborn because of avidya and maya respectively and
even the Christians and the Catholics would have to admit that they are either reborn
after death or if they are not prepared to admit rebirth, that their souls continue to
live after the physical bodies die. In any event it could be said that in general,
religions are concerned with (continuation of) life after death (of physical bodies) of
sathva (men and women). They teach (continuation of) life after death and also there are
various rituals associated with them and "preach" some form of liberation. So
not only Islam and Christianity but Buddhism and Hinduism are religions. Those who claim
that Buddhism and Hinduism are not religions and are only ways of life are to my mind
being misled by some western definition of religion and taken the cultural aspects of a
religion to be the most important.

The Buddhists differ from followers of other "world religions" in trying not
to be reborn. Their liberation is from birth and not from death. Needles to say that when
one is liberated from birth, one is liberated from death as well. (I do not know when
ideas such as "mara parajaya" (defeat of death) entered mainstream Theravada
Buddhism, but it could be due to the influence of Mahayana that created the concept of
"immortal" Buddhas in the form of Dharmakayas and other "kayas" and of
immortal Bodhisathvas in effect. The Buddhists also do not have a creator God. These two
aspects make Theravada Buddhism a peculiar "world religion" without any common
"object"that the followers could share. The creator God in any one of the other
world religions is common to all people following that religion though the God may have
been only a tribal god in the distant past. When a religion gets itself promoted from a
local religion to a world religion the creator god, if any, is promoted from a tribal god
to a universal God. In Islam and Christianity those who embrace these religions also
transfer their allegiance from the local (or the tribal) god to the (new) universal God of
those religions. (Buddhists who are converted get a God with their conversion.) As others
have observed not many people are converted to Hinduism. Hinduism spreads now mainly
through the migration of Hindus to various other countries. The "world
religions" other than Buddhism have not only a common creator God but a common object
like Heaven or Brahaman with whom they could unite. These objects and the creator Gods are
objective "bodies" that exist independent of men (or sathva in general) and this
"objectivity" of the God and the Heaven (they are united in Brahman in Hinduism)
make these religions "world" or even universal religions with objective bodies,
however subjective they may appear to a materialist. Some materialists would like to call
it "objective idealism" of the world religions. What about the other "world
religion" Buddhism? There is neither an "objective" creator God in Buddhism
nor an "objective" Heaven. The gods such as Shakra are not immortal creator Gods
and their abodes such as Thavthisa and Thusitha are not "places of liberation".
Nibbana cannot be expressed in terms of other concepts or words (I challenge anybody
including Dr. Asanga Thilakeratne whose Ph. D. thesis, I understand, is on the
ineffability of Nirvana, and his thesis supervisor Dr. David Kalupahana to express Nibbana
in words. For this purpose I am not interested in negative concepts and nirpravadas and
Nibbana has to be expressed positively in terms of some other concepts.) The Theravada
Buddhists have, in general, "negative theories" (nirpravada) of Nibbana and
liberation. Nagarjunapada and the Madhyamikes tried to provide with a theory for Nibbana
by making Nibbana relative to the Sansara. Nibbana not being a concept cannot be relative
to a concept such as Sansara and in the long run all that Nagarjunapada achieved with
respect to Bharat Buddhism both literary and literally was Sunyatha, which made it easier
for Shankaracharya later on to formulate the positive concept of Nirgun Brahman and win
over the Buddhists in Bharat. In any event it has to be emphasised that there is no
"universal" concept, either in the form of a God, a Nirgun Brahman or a Heaven
in Buddhism for Buddhists around the world to rally round. There is no "place"
for the Buddhists even after liberation to "get together". Thus from the
beginning there is nothing in Buddhism, especially in Theravada Buddhism that makes it a
so called world religion. In Mahayana Buddhism, with the concepts of Dharmakaya,
Sambhogakaya, Bodhisathvas and their abodes the situation is somewhat different and
Buddhism in the form of Mahayana may have some ingredients that could make it a
"world religion" where its followers the world over could rally round some
positive concept. It should not come as a surprise that most of the western Buddhists are
attracted to Mahayana Buddhism. Any attempt to make Theravada Buddhism a world religion is
bound to fail and the attempt by Colonel Olcott and others to create a world Buddhism with
the introduction of six colour Buddhist flag and similar concepts has not succeeded. One
cannot even make a theosophical Buddhism or an intellectual Buddhism from Theravada
Buddhism with its nirpravadas. People like Colonel Olcott succeeded not in making a
"world Buddhism" out of Theravada Buddhism but by eliminating to a certain
extent the Sinhala or jathikathva of the Sinhala Buddhism and Sinhala Buddhist culture.

Buddhism, especially Theravada Buddhism, from the beginning has always being a
"local" religion(s). In that sense there is no Buddhism or Theravada Buddhist
civilisation as such and always there have been Sinhala Buddhism, Thai or Siam Buddhism,
Myanmar or Ramanna Buddhism etc. People like Toynbee when they say that there is no
Theravada Buddhist civilisation or that the Theravada Buddhist civilisation has been
fossilised they may be subconsciously thinking of this aspect of Theravada Buddhism. A
civilisation first of all gives a sense of belonging to a large set of people and
Theravada Buddhism is unable to provide the people with symbols and concepts to come
together with some kind of bondage. It is not that Theravada Buddhist civilisation is
fossilised but Theravada Buddhism cannot create a civilisation to begin with. It can only
produce "local" cultures such as Sinhala Buddhism.

The above should not be taken as a criticism of Theravada Buddhism(s). I like Theravada
Buddhism for what it is and we should not try to make a world religion or an intellectual
religion out of Theravada Buddhism. When Arhat Mahinda came to Sri Lanka more than two
thousand three hundred years ago what was introduced officially to this country was a
Sinhala Buddhism. Arhat Mahinda when asked by the king Devanam Piyathissa said that
Buddhism would be established in the country only after a person born in this country
enters the sasana as a Bhikku and preach Dhamma. Arhat Mahinda not only did not get rid of
tree worshipping that was prevailing in this country at that time, but gave it a Buddhist
touch by obtaining a branch of Sri Maha Bodhi for people to worship. The people on the
other hand did not give up their pantheon of gods and instead made them Buddhist gods.
Further they were able to accommodate any other god that came from India afterwards. What
was established was a Sinhala Buddhism that would not have been found anywhere else in the
world. I think the situation was no different in the other Theravada Buddhist countries.

However in the Sinhala Buddhism that was established in the time of Devanam Piyathissa
the "war" was missing as most probably it was influenced by the Buddhism of the
king Asoka of Bharat, the latter becoming a Buddhist after fighting a war and giving up
war. In no time two horse traders who came from Bharat, probably from Sindh, captured
Anuradhapura. Though king Asela was able to defeat the horse traders it was left to the
king Dutugemunu to add "war" as a component of Sinhala Buddhism. In the process
Sinhala Buddhism went through a kind of metamorphism. Post Dutugemunu Sinhala Buddhism was
not the same as pre Dutugemunu Sinhala Buddhism and if not for the metamorphism that was
introduced by the king Dutugemunu, most probably on the advice of Vihara Maha Devi,
Sinhala Buddhism would have disappeared from this country long time ago. It has to be
emphasised that only in Sri Lanka or Sinhale, the "missions" sent by the king
Asoka was successful and it was due to two reasons. Firstly the Sinhala culture (with the
Sinhala language) was compatible with Theravada Buddhism. This is shown by the answers
given by king Devanam Piyathissa to Arhat Mahinda on trees that were mangoes and not
mangoes and also on kings relatives and non relatives. I analysed these questions
and answers about twelve years ago in an article (not a so-called research paper to
collect points for promotions) published in "Divaina". I have now developed this
analysis further taking into consideration the role of the observer within and outside a
system (with connotations in Quantum Physics) and hope to publish it in my research
journals "Divaina" and "The Island", in the near future, knowing very
well that I would not get any points for my "promotions" from what are known as
newspaper articles in the academic circles. Fortunately my wife and girlfriend, though an
academic herself, continues to ignore these circulars on points and has no hesitation to
promote me at home as well as at various fora. A culture that had produced a king who
could think of somebody left when both the relatives and the non relatives were taken off
from a set of human beings, unconsciously making use of the fourth case of
"catuskoti" (four fold logic), that is very important to Theravada Buddhism, was
ready for "anatma" of Theravada Buddhism that explained rebirth of sathva as
that of neither the sathva nor of some other sathva. ("na ca so na ca anno" in
the Pali of Ven. Buddhagosa Thero). What a contrast is it from the answers given by the
present day rulers. The story is that when a politician was asked by a visitor from
another country whether there were any jack trees other than that was before him he had
answered that all the other trees have been fell and the last one before him was marked
for the afternoon. When he was asked whether there were any people who were not his
relatives he had said that the whole world is his relatives and so is the visitor who
asked the question and as such the visitor could help him (the politician) with a foreign
trip.

Secondly Theravada Buddhism survived in this country for so long because of the
metamorphism that it went through during the time of king Dutugemunu. The king (and Vihara
Maha Devi) introduced "war" as a part of Sinhala Buddhism to defend the country
from invasions. However unlike the present day bell bottom Vihara Maha Devis and cardboard
Dutugemunus they did not make war a holy war in defense of the country, the nation , or
the sasana (religion) as in some other cultures. Thus there is war in Sinhala Buddhism but
no holy war. The irony is that those who preach holy war and who have practiced holy war
for thousands of years and who are fighting wars against terrorism want Sinhala people not
to launch operations against terrorists in Sri Lanka.(To be continued)